Good Old Days April 28

An early motorist takes a break from over land travel to catch up on his correspondence as his driver stands at the ready.

Photo courtesy Joann Hamlin.

125 years ago

The Commoner

April 24, 1891

Last Saturday a Commoner reporter visited the enterprising little town of St. John. After a brisk ride of three hours, across the rolling, but fertile Palouse country the town was reached.

St. John, situated as it is, on a broad valley, has one of the most desirable town sites in Whitman County. The country surrounding it, although not as yet so extensively farmed as the northern and eastern portions of the county, which have had the advantages of railroads long before this part could have access to a local market for its farm products, is, nevertheless, very productive. However, since the building of the U.P.R.R. through this part of the county the rolling prairies surrounding St. John, which were once roamed by vast numbers of horses, cattle and sheep, are rapidly being converted into farms.

The wheat marketed here last year, most of which was the first crop the land had produced, amounted to more than 150,000 bushels, and the town was one of the scenes of the celebrated Palouse wheat blockades.

Although the town is scarcely two years old it contains quite a number of thriving business enterprises.

***

Yesterday a general rain fell throughout the Palouse country, greatly adding to the prospects for a bountiful harvest this season.

The prospects for a very profitable year for the farmers are good. In this county there has been little freezing out and the winter wheat is in excellent condition. It has a good color, it is well rooted and the stool is well filled. The early melting of the snow on the wheat fields and the late rains give promise of unusually good wheat prospects throughout the county.

***

The commission to locate the agricultural college and the board of regents which will have charge of it met in this city today. The regents organized by electing Dr. Conover, of Port Townsend, president; Andrew H. Smith, of Tacoma, secretary, and Samuel Vinson, of Yakima, clerk.

The first thing to do will be the election of a president to the college, who is also by law to be secretary of the board of regents.

Inquiries have been pouring in all day as to the location of the college. The commission held a meeting at the Olympia hotel at 10 o'clock this evening, but say that beyond considering the propositions from Yakima, Lincoln, Whitman, Columbia and Franklin counties, they did nothing.

Yakima and Whitman are the only counties having anybody here to look after their interests.

Two experiment stations will be established, one of which must be in connection with the college and the other will be west of the mountains. It is assured that two of the commissioners will vote at the outset for different places, and a decision will not be rendered until the end of the week.

100 years ago

The Colfax Commoner

April 28, 1916

The nucleus of a movement to erect a large and handsome new school house in Colfax has been inaugurated by the board of directors.

Its successful termination will depend upon the wishes of the people and the interest they manifest in the matter.

The plan proposed, is to bond the school district in a sufficient sum to carry it out, say $30,000 or $40,000 for 20 years, and with the money thus raised erect, upon some suitable site within the city, a structure which will for years be an honor and a credit to the city and the district.

***

At a meeting held in the city hall last Thursday evening, a Good Roads association was formed, and Geo L. Cornelius of this city was named president of the association. The new president has a committee at work drafting the laws and constitution and these will be brought forward for consideration at a future meeting.

The new president is an active worker and an effort will be made to form a strong county organization for the purpose of improving the roads of the county.

***

The Pullman Chamber of Commerce held a meeting last week and decided to improve South Grand street by having it paved. The piece of road has been so bad that a number of property owners asked to have it improved.

***

The Spokane & Inland Empire railway company has a force of men at work building a spur from the main line, a mile south of Palouse city, to a deposit of potter's clay on the R. T. Cox farm. The Pacific Stoneware company at Portland has contracted for a large quantity of the clay, and it is for the purpose of getting this clay out that the spur is being built. One of the oldest potteries in the Inland Empire was formerly operated on the Cox farm, and the old building is still standing in that place.

75 years ago

Colfax Gazette Commoner

April 25, 1941

John Van Amburgh, county sanitarian, told local dairymen here Friday evening that 32.8 percent of the normal Colfax retail milk trade was going to a dairy which they do not consider a strictly local enterprise. Mr. Van Amburgh did not state that this loss of business was due, in his opinion, to the lack of adoption by the city of a standard milk ordinance. The meeting had been called by the council's health committee to give dairymen the opportunity to discuss their side of the issue concerning adoption of the milk code.

At the council meeting Monday evening, Sam Randall, chairman, stated that it was the recommendation of his health committee that the council adopt a milk ordinance patterned after the U.S. public health service code, but he also recommended that action be delayed two weeks to find time for further conferences with the dairymen.

***

Publishers of the Colfax Gazette-Commoner Tuesday signed a 10-year lease with the Colfax Masonic corporation for occupancy of the rooms in the Fraternity building now tenanted by Mrs. Anna L. King, proprietor of King's book store. The rooms, which give the newspaper and its printing shop more floor space than is afforded in the present location, will be remodeled to meet the requirements of the plant. A new front will be built to match that made on the south side of the building last year for the office of the National Farm Loan association. The cost of the improvements have been estimated at $1,200.

Mrs. King, members of the Masonic corporation said, is dealing with the local agent of the Livingstone estate for the room in the Pioneer building formerly occupied by the Model café.

***

Common laborers in the employ of Whitman County have received an increase in wages from $3 to $3.30 for an eight-hour day under a new wage scale announced this week by the commissioners and effective April 1.

An increase from $4 to $4.40 was given to truck drivers, crusher feeders and hoist men. The rate of pay for all other classes of work remained unchanged.

50 years ago

Colfax Gazette

April 28, 1966

Mr. and Mrs. Oscar Solberg and family of Moses Lake have moved into the Whitman Hotel, which he recently leased from Jay Doud, operator for the last six months. Solberg told the Gazette he had no major plans for the hotel's future but that the restaurant would be opened in early May.

In Moses Lake, the Solbergs operated a 95-space mobile home park and owned five rental houses.

***

Residents of the Lamont school district will vote Monday on special levies totaling more than 13 mills to provide extra funds for current operation and to employ an additional high school teacher.

Polls will open from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. in the town hall. Proposition No. 1 calls for an 11 mill levy to raise $27,000 for the current expense fund and Proposition No. 2 calls for a two and one-quarter mill levy to raise $5,500 to employ an additional teacher.

***

Plans were received at the Whitman County library this week for development of the Library's unfinished basement into a four-room complex which will include a public meeting room, office, staff and storage room, according to Librarian Margaret Morse.

Cost of the project was originally placed between $25,000 and $30,000 by Spokane architects Heylman, Warren Cummings and associates. The same firm designed the library building, Miss Morse said.

The plans will be presented to the Whitman County library board at the May 10 meeting.

As the plans now read, the largest room in the basement will be a 35 by 54-foot meeting room which would be open to all types of non-profit making organizations, Miss Morse said.

Another room in the complex will be used for storage of back-issue magazines. Also included in the plan will be the librarian's office and a business office.

***

Center stripes for Whitman County roads are in the planning stage this week and a resolution listing specific roads for striping will probably reach the county commissioners' desk Monday, according to County Engineer John McInerny.

Rusty Whitmore, county maintenance engineer, is reviewing the condition of the county's paved roads this week to determine which roads are in shape for centerlines, McInerny said.

With the commissioner's final approval, McInerny said some of the county's roads could get centerlines in the next few weeks. The county now has about 267 miles of paved roads, according to McInerny. Just which ones will be striped will depend on their condition and the amount of funds available for doing the work.

25 years ago

Colfax Gazette

April 25, 1991

A hearing is scheduled for May 9 at 7 p.m. in the Lacrosse town hall on a petition by Busch Distributors to have Lacrosse annex the other half of its “cardtrol” outlet.

The facility's storage tanks are in the county and the service station pumps are in the town now.

The cardtrol fuel system began operating in Lacrosse in January 1990. Busch also has cardtrol facilities in North Pullman, Uniontown, Palouse and Colfax.

***

Whitman Hospital and Medical Center marked a slim operating profit of $29,660 last year, a swing of close to $225,000 from the operating loss last year. The report on hospital finances was given at last week's board meeting.

In addition to the $29,660 in earnings, the hospital added $95,721 in hospital levy revenue and $32,984 in non-operating revenue, for a gain of $158,365 in the ledgerbooks.

***

The county is securing the right of way needed for the Rye Bridge project, county engineer Brandon Cole told the county commissioners Tuesday.

The legal descriptions of the property they needed were being prepared “as we speak,” Cole said.

Then a resolution would be prepared for the commissioners' signatures and the county could begin construction, he explained.

The state said they would get construction money to the county as soon as possible, not the month these things usually take, Cole added.

Two 12-foot culverts are needed to replace the bridge up to the capacity for a 100 year flood standard required to receive federal funding.

10 years ago

Whitman County Gazette

April 27, 2006

Colfax school district officials expect to lose another 65 students, just under 10 percent of current enrollment, over the next three years, according to a projection presented to the school board Monday night by Supt. Mike Morgan.

The projected enrolled for the district for the 2008-09 school year will be 620 students compared to 685 listed for the current school year.

The projected figures compare with an enrollment of 747 in the 1992-93 school year, the earliest listed on the projection report.

***

The Blue Ribbon Advisory Task Committee recommended four out of five projects receive a total of $100,000 in county economic develop 0.08 grants.

Colton topped BRATC's priority list with a $11,250 request to help the city buy 22 acre-feet of water rights. Rosalia was next for $21,000 for creating a city-owned medical clinic, followed by Uniontown for $49,315 for the final phase of the Dahmen barn artisan workshop.

The Colton, Rosalia and Uniontown projects were recommended for full funding of their requests. The remaining $18,435 available for BRATC recommendations went to the Tekoa golf course project for drilling a well and upgrading the irrigation system. Tekoa's request for $45,000.

The lowest-ranked project, a rehabilitation of the Garfield clinic by Hospital District 2, failed to get any monetary recommendation out of its $50,000 request.

The BRATC recommendations go to the county commission for action Monday.

***

Rosalia's 1923 Texaco, which was restored in 2004 into the Rosalia visitor Resource and Interpretive center, will receive of the 2006 State Historic Preservation Officer's Valerie Sivinski Award for Rehabilitation. Volunteers on the station project were notified by the Washington State Department of Archaeology & Historic Preservation Office.

The award will be presented to Rosalia representatives at the State Capitol Building in Olympia May 2.